Guarding

Read Westbankmama's guard story. I found it brought back memories as I had a great laugh over it. So I commented this

That's a classic, I laughed so hard, I forgot how hungry I was/am.

In the early days, into the '80's, the guards doubled as babysitters, since all the adults were partying, and there weren't too many kids old enough to babysit. There weren't too many phones either, so the guards would check on crying babies and call their parents out of the parties and meetings.

and figured I'd tell you more.

On Purim, it must have had been 23 years ago, we were among the lucky ones, with a daughter old enough to babysit and alert enough to stay awake to do the job well.

It was a snowy night, really! Sometimes it snows here on Purim.

While all the adults in our neighborhood were "down the hill" a kilometer and a half, meaning a mile, from home partying, my daughter heard something outside. Imagine her surprise when she realized that it was a group of three little kids wandering around, crying, dressed in their pajamas. She left#2 in charge and ran out to see what was wrong. They had woken up and wanted their mommy.

Of course my daughter knew everyone in our small, then it was small, neighborhood and knew that there was a baby left alone in the house, so she got dressed for the snow and ran outside to rescue the sleeping baby. And she watched them, too, in our house.

When a guard came by, she sent the message to the parents, who then came up to put their kids back to bed.